With a new coaching staff and Tavita Pritchard at the helm, Stanford's will be looking to close this gap in order to have a shot at a bowl game
Since the start of 2021, the Stanford Cardinal football program has a 16-44 record. Even though they broke a four-year streak of going 3-9 last season by climbing up to 4-8, there are still improvements that need to be made to the roster to reach a bowl game, let alone become a national powerhouse once again.
The expectations for this season should be that this is another rebuilding year. Stanford has made a number of changes yet again, but this time, the hiring of Tavita Pritchard seems to be a more long-term solution with his existing ties to the program as both a player and later as a coach, while yet another new coaching staff means new systems and schemes for the players on the field to learn.
It's going to take some time to get Pritchard's plan up and running with recruiting, along with the offense and defense getting up to speed. The on-field product could take a few weeks, but we're willing to give them a season of grace.
While the expectations are that this is a step in the right direction for the program, the hope for this season is that they can somehow find a way to get to six wins and challenge for a bowl game this year. With a brutal schedule ahead, that may be a fool's errand, but that is the optimistic approach.
Looking at the schedule, there are four games that Stanford will have a good shot in. They could end up with another 4-8 season, but holding steady would almost feel like progress given the direction the program is headed, combined with five games against ranked opponents.
The Cardinal start with a winnable game against Hawaii on August 29, then follow that up immediately with one of the harder games of the season, welcoming No. 7 Miami to The Farm. The Cardinal also have road games against No. 4 Notre Dame in October, No. 24 Louisville on Halloween, and wrap up the regular season at home against No. 20 SMU on November 28.
Stanford is ranked 89th in that same CBS Sports poll, displaying the expected gap between the Cardinal and their opponents — at least on paper.
The Gap That Needs to Close
In looking at the team's offensive and defensive numbers over the course of the 2025 season, there is a clear gap that needs to close in order to play closer to .500 football and reach a bowl game.
Last season the Cardinal offense scored 226 total points, good for 18.8 points per game. That ranked last (17th) in the ACC and 120th out of 134 FBS schools.
Defensively, Stanford allowed 350 total points, good for 29.2 points allowed per game. That ranked 13th in the ACC and 95th among FBS programs. The defense is in a decent spot. If they could trim a field goal per game, a 26-point average would have placed them 11th in the conference, which is where Cal finished. Cal also went to a bowl game.
Clemson ranked 11th in offense in the ACC last season, and they put up 27.2 PPG, so that would mean that the Cardinal would need to add 9.4 points per game just to get to that same ranking on offense, if the numbers held.
The real chasm here isn't about the rankings, but a simple plus-minus between the two facets of the game. Stanford scored just 226 points on offense and gave up 350 on defense, a -124 differential.
The closer that gap gets to being zero, or even a positive number, the closer the Cardinal will be to reaching a bowl game.
